Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/107

 forth in the garden." The voice of the Lord is any inward dictate which emanates from Him. "Going forth" is the correct translation, not "walking" as the authorized version has it. It was not the Lord walking in a natural garden and speaking face to face with a man and woman. It was an inward dictate of conscience, the voice of the Lord, which those people experienced, going forth in the garden of the intelligence of which they were yet possessed, calling them to account for the wretched mistake they had made. So they "hid themselves from the face of the Lord;" that is, they shut out the divine dictate and the divine countenance from their minds; and they hid themselves among the trees of the garden, that is, they averted themselves from the Lord or his dictates by withdrawing into the perceptions of their own self-intelligence.

It is the usual story, first enacted in the ancient garden. When man wants to do wrong, when he wants to be selfish, when he wants to gorge himself with worldly pleasure, the inward voice of the Lord forbids; yet he turns from it, shuts out the voice that would counsel and correct—the voice of divine wisdom and virtue—and justifies himself by the delusive sophistry of his self-intelligence. So did the people of the most ancient times. And when they seriously sought to shut out the suggestions which the Lord would fain 9*